Yes, but it's also useful for new-ish writers.
You want to show that the story is in USA without telling it outright? Have someone pull out a gun and nobody bats an eye. You don't need to fill the scene with fat white men anymore - just the gun and no reaction to it.
I'm a school bus driver and one of my coworkers is constantly talking about how worried he is that somebody is going to shoot up a school bus instead of a school (I'm not exactly worried about this myself, but a full bus would make a pretty easy target). His proposed solution is that drivers be armed -- he wants to carry his beloved AR-15 with him on the bus. I foolishly engaged him and questioned where he would even mount the fucking thing (it's an assault rifle for those who don't know, the civilian version of the M-16) so he could reach it quickly but the kids couldn't get their hands on it. I keep encouraging him to suggest this to the district superintendent so he gets his ass fired but I don't know if that would actually happen. Our schools already have ex-cops for security and we do fucking active shooter drills with elementary school kids.
Unfortunately, he's the type who watches action movies because he wants to imagine himself as the hero,
But not saving lives.
He wants to kill, but be considered righteous for it
It's a sickness, not unique to 'Murica, but definitely more pronounced there
All part of the weapons industry plan. The myth that you need guns to be free, that you need guns to revolt, that the world is full of criminals waiting to launch an attack on your home, that global supply chains and regulations that disseminate the food you buy are not to be trusted and you need to drive 4 hours out of your suburbia to go hunting for meat - all an advertising scheme to sell you metal fireworks toys. Not negating their real utility in niche applications but those applications remain just that - niche. Civilized nations don’t need to kowtow to this predatory industry.
I don't think Americans quite appreciate how few guns one encounters when you are practically anywhere else in the world.
The only guns I see in my life are in possession of trained professionals. And even then it's a lot if I see one per three months.
I've never been in a situation in my life where I've regretted not having a gun. Rather the opposite, I've been struggling with depression at a point in my life where access to a gun might have provided an easy way out.
And generally I like guns. As in I've been interested in military history for my entire life. When I'm the us I've been to a shooting range and thought that was cool (but also terrifying).
I don't think non-Americans appreciate how few guns one encounters in America if one isn't a gun nut or gun-nut-adjacent. It is not that everybody owns a gun. It's that the relative few people who own dozens or hundreds of guns skew the average.
I'll disagree. I've been mugged. There have also been two times I've visited friends that have been casually cleaning guns when I arrived. A person I do martial arts with has a conceal carry and has come in with it a few times. Every cop has at least one. There's a gun store that's on my commute route. I was hiking and crossed paths with an elderly couple on horseback and they were packing. I've known two people that have killed themselves with a gun. I drilled with fake guns in NJROTC in high school and there were opportunities to train and compete in marksmanship with actual guns. I shot BB guns in Cub Scouts (those two are just examples as to how young gun culture becomes part of an American's life). When I was growing up, Walmart sold guns and ammo. They still do in certain places.
I have to factor into my interactions with people if they have a gun. Like I put up with a lot more shitty behavior on the road because I live in a state with a high incidence of guns being involved with road rage incidents. If I get into an argument with my neighbor, is that conservative asshole going to do something stupid if things escalate (yeah yeah, don't escalate, just an example). All the POCs I know have been taught how to behave during a traffic stop to reduce their chances of getting shot by a cop.
I've never even held or shot a real gun, but guns permeate my life.
Edit: Christ, the people who are advocating fear of gun violence being good for society is how idiotic of a gun culture there is in the US.
Desk guns are for desk pops. When was the last time you did a desk pop?
Summer of ‘08
Americans are desensitized to guns, but the Dr. Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories was a military veteran who often carried his army revolver. Anybody with a passing familiarity with the character of Dr. Watson could think, "I guess he keeps his gun in his desk."
The majority of the UK had guns readily available up until the great war. Then the population was disarmed, the homicide rate was lower than it is today in the UK... Sherlock was written for those times, and guns were not unusual.
This post says "the first episode of sherlock where john watson opens up his drawer and you see a gun".
So, it's talking about the Sherlock mini-series from 2010 which was set in modern times. I don't think that in modern times a military veteran is allowed to keep a gun in a drawer.
When I was in Ireland last summer I accidentally took too much food and didn't want to piss off our hosts (I got nauseated out of where) so I took it back to the room and put it in the drawer in the bedside table and was so worried they would see it while cleaning and think I was stealing by taking too much at breakfast. My companion told me it was okay and that I could explain it away by saying I'm an American and having a bedside sandwich is our culture.
To be fair, part of my desensitization is from the (100% accurate documentary) Hot Fuzz. Maybe they were just establishing that Watson is a farmer... or a farmer's mum.
anybody have examples of the opposite? American hollywood movies/shows that nonchalantly presented something common in the USA, but was jarring when you watched it?
Breaking indoor walls so damn easily, thought it was a Hollywood thing like exploding cars, endless mags etc. Took me a while to get that such thin walls are just common in the US
They make them out of literal cardboard now because drywall is too expensive. I wish I was joking. Look up cyfy on YouTube, he's a home inspector in Arizona and some of the million dollar+ homes he inspects are actual temu quality shitholes from big name builders.
Bacon strips for breakfast, as if they have healthcare.
The concept of Boy Scouts.
Pledge of allegiance in school is quite unusual.
And how you have flags on everything, including outside people's houses.
"Central air" is a term I only learned the meaning of recently, but American TV assumes everyone knows what it is. Which is fair, if you all have it. Same with the hand blenders you have in your kitchen sinks.
It's seriously funny how freaked out people get from garbage disposals.
They're quite safe. They don't have spinning blades. They have something closer to a dull grater and arms on swivels that catch loose food and push it against the stationary grind plate.
You shouldn't put your hand in one because the little weighted arms are going very fast and could hurt your fingers if they got hit, but it's unlikely to push them into the wall.
They're great if you have proper sewage treatment, since it keeps the trash from getting stinky and it basically just gets turned into fertilizer like a more efficient, roundabout compost heap that I don't need to remember to poke.
Flags in front of random houses. It's technically illegal in my country (India), although no one will bother you over it.
I always thought that when heros fought and threw things and people though walls it was an extra strong emphasis of how strong they were. As if they were close to supermen because of their rage/determination/skills. I recently realise that american home have super fragile wall. Like a normal human can punch it through if they want to. So movie makers didn't meant what I thought.
Eh, they may be 'fragile,' but they're not 'human body gets tossed through by a breeze' level of fragile. I think when some friends of mine crashed into a wall in a drunken wrestling match at full force during a high school house party, they still only cratered the wall, not broke through or smashed it down.
No school uniforms, not even basic colour guidelines.
I always find it jarring when the actors get out of a car and it moves. Not a lot, just a small jolt, but quite noticeable. Apparently this is normal if you put an automatic transmission in park and get out quickly. Everyone I know here (mostly manual transmission) always pulls the parking break when parking, so the car only moves up because of the weight of the person getting out.
British show with a desk gun only reminds me of The IT Crowd
I wonder if it's loaded.
When I saw the desk gun, my only thought was that it was going to be featured eventually due to Chekhov's Gun.
I would have just assumed it was from his time in the army, since, you know... Watson was in the army. And also the fact he is a detective's assistant that got into scraps with bad guys frequently.
I mean it is, but you're very much not allowed to keep your gun after you leave. (I'm assuming OP is referring to "Sherlock", the modern-day BBC adaptation)
As I recall in the books, Holmes calls upon Watson several times specifically because he has a gun and can use it.
One of the main reasons America isn't a developed nation, we think being without a gun is scarier than being without a doctor. Even though no mass shooting has ever been stopped by a "Good guy with a gun"
People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
